Gun ownership is MAD?

"I don't like guns, i hate guns.
That said, as long as the only practical defense against firepower is firepower, I have no problem with an armed individual trying to protect himself and his family from an outside threat."

"A personal policy of mutually assured destruction is as decent a deterrent as i can think of.
You aim at me and i'll aim at you. Pretty simple."

Shane posted these words in another thread saying that the subject needed its own thread, so here it is.

 

“the only practical defense against firepower is firepower”

I have a spear you have a thirty eight, so I get a thirty eight and you get an assault rifle, so I get an assault rifle and you get a bazooka so I get a bazooka and you get a tank so I get a tank and you get a F-16, so I get an F-16 and you get an atomic bomb, so I get an atomic bomb and you get a hydrogen bomb so I get a hydrogen bomb.

But what if you haven’t the resources for the next step?

If I can only afford a spear then any person with a gun can dominate me.

Might becomes right

Again Shane with seems to be Social Darwinism but based on wealth not fitness the person or group that can afford the greater firepower becomes the dominant one.

This was how the empires were built, did the Zulus really have that much chance in the end against maxim machine guns? Did the Native Americans against six shooters and repeater rifles?

You might say you don’t want to dominate anyone, but you have already said that in the battle for the things you want you look after what you want first. Well if you want land and you have a gun and the people on the land only have bows and arrows then your want is paramount isn’t it?

**

“I have no problem with an armed individual trying to protect himself and his family from an outside threat.”

What threat?

Why is there a threat?

Why is someone so desperate for what you have or hates you so much that they are willing to possibly get killed in the pursuit of it or your death?

**

“A personal policy of mutually assured destruction is as decent a deterrent as i can think of.
You aim at me and i'll aim at you. Pretty simple.”

But this presumes you are allowed to aim back?

If someone want you dead or want to rob you and they believe you are armed they are not going to call you out like some b-movie western, they are just going to shoot you in the back or from a distance that you cannot reach. Maybe they don’t even shoot you just plant or drop a bomb, kill you by remote control.

So how do you defend yourself?

Wear a kavlar jacket, drive an armoured car, install bullet-proof glass in your home? Have your gun out at all times and pointing it at everyone that is around you? Do you try and impose an exclusion zone around you warning people they risk being shot if they get closer? How far do you exclude people, I mean a sniper can put a bullet right through you from a mile away?

I live in a city and pass hundreds maybe thousands of people a day often while pushing or carrying my child, I use public transport, I live in a normal semidetached house and such things are impossible, so I’m thankful I live in a society where very, very few people have guns.

Rather than giving everyone a gun I would rather work toward having a society were no one would be so desperate for money or recognition that they felt they needed to use a gun.

**

I know this was a reply to me repeating your statement about wishing to arm everyone. I know you don’t like me repeating it but the fact is it shocked me. Here is the statement in full -

“Tear up the constitution, give everyone a gun, let the population drop off to what nature can sustain, tear up the roads and blacktop, erase every dotted line from the map, let private property become public property become just land”

To me yours is a very negative philosophy and your views on guns just highlights this even more. It is not about trying to understand others motivation or about caring for others or changing things for the better it is about defending what is yours and to hell with anyone else.

As you say - “I am not responsible for the people in darfur, kosovo, france, china, n. korea, india, new orleans, new york city, boston, chicago, or anywhere else. They are responsible for their own survival, health, food, happiness, ect.”

I mean imagine someone is starving or needs the money for an operation that would save their life in your philosophy it seems it acceptable for them to shot you in the back and take your money, they are just taking responsibility for “their own survival, health, food, happiness, ect.”

To me it would not only be a tragedy that you were killed but that the other person felt the only way they could survive was by killing you.

To me the best defence against being shot at is to remove the idea that things are best settled with a gun either in defence or attack.

**

 

Wrong.

Unfortunately, in the present world Might is Right.
How do you think the state maintains it's position of dominance?

And as much as I hate guns, i would rather not be the one holding only a spear...

Short of magically or technologically making the enemy's advanced weaponry useless, how do you suppose the groups being over powered are to defend themselves and their family?

Diplomacy?

Not a bad idea, but when only one side is interested in diplomacy it's a smart idea to have a plan b, (the native americans tried diplomacy, remember?).

That's the point.
Most people are not willing to get killed in the proccess, so when aware that you have the means to defend your self they tend to back off. (example on a large scale: we invaded iraq not n.korea.).

As far as who the other person is and why i feel the need to be prepared...

As Dirk_Pitt already stated, most of the time you don't have to look for trouble, it finds you.

Depends on the percieved threat.

Crackhead, gangbanger? Probably will just avoid a part of town with a populace that is able to defend itself.

Fascist Crackdown? Kavlar might not be such a bad idea...

I'm sure there are plenty of holocaust survivors who wish they could have had better means of defending themselves (and i do believe there were pockets of continued resistance....).

Should they have laid down their arms and tried to negotiate with their exterminators?

Ideally, a society would not reach that level of oppression, but we don't live in an ideal world.

Why do assume that the two are mutually exclusive.
Diplomacy and Defense work fairly well hand in hand...

It's not about " to hell with everyone else".

It's about individual autonomy with free association and the ability to defend one's person.

Kindness and altruistic activities are not in opposition to a philosophy of personal responsibility.

Oppression exists because people allow themselves to be oppressed. i do not believe i have an absolute moral imperative to defend those who refuse to defend themselves. But i retain the right to help any person or group of people i choose. Not only that, though i have no moral imperative to help anyone i don't want to, id have self-interest in fighting alongside those who are likeminded and who are oppressed. Their continued oppression puts me at a greater likelyhood of oppression myself.

So, i reject the notion that i have feed the homeless or care about the iraqi people, but i choose to.

I don't believe i ever stated that it was the best possible option.
I would rather it not be a matter of your survival or mine, but don't fool yourself into thinking that it never is. And if it comes to that, i plan to survive.

 

Atomic bombs, Hydrogen bombs? Are we talking about individuals or governments?

This is the nature of “the only practical defense against firepower is firepower” and as I’ve tried to point out at some point the one with the more wealth wins.

I’ll try and explain again.

If I can only afford a spear then any person with a gun can dominate me.

In a world dominated by the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction the one with the greater destructive power is more likely to be the dominant power, be that an individual or government.

**

What threats? Take a look in the newspapers, violent crime is everywhere. A very large percent of criminals its not about despiration but plain old greed. I mean are people so desperate they need to steal your VCR or TV? no they just WANT it.

But why is violent crime supposedly everywhere? In the UK we are actually living in a rather peaceful and crime free time (compared to the past) but you wouldn’t know it if you read the papers, remember bad news sells, good news doesn’t.

You can buy a VCR (although most people would prefer a DVD player) for £25 (DVD’s are not much more) here and once when I was unemployed I had four TV’s all of them having been thrown away (I kept one, a large colour set, for 15 years). I would say that someone was desperate if they were willing to risk robbery for those things. But as also pointed out in Shane’s philosophy such behaviour is acceptable as long as it can be got away with.
But people that have a stake in there society, a job, status, a future, are less likely to jeopardise those things than those that are excluding from the benefits of their society.

**

lets face it, Weapons are a deterrant. If you are a criminal and you want to rob a house, and you have 2 choices. In house 1 you have a suspicion the owner is armed, in house 2 you have a suspicion the owner is NOT armed. Which one do you think he would choose?

In what way are they a deterrent?

If you are determined and suspect that any owner has a weapon you get the bigger weapon you can and shoot first. If anything wider gun ownership leads to the potential for more injuries and death.

**

How do you defend yourself? You dont walk down a dark alley in the bad part of town. You do not pick up strangers to give rides to, etc etc. I know many victims of crime and very few of them went looking for it. If it finds you, what are you supposed to do?

Why are there ‘bad parts of town’ why isn’t all your town a good place to live without fear? That is the question your should be asking yourself. I’ve lived in many run down areas of London and have walked around late at night even early in the morning (sometimes after a few drinks) and have never had any trouble.

I have also hitchhiked all over Europe and the only problems I ever had were from drunks who I thought were too gone to drive safely. In my experience people have more to worry from those that pick them up than from those they pick up.

It just sounds like Britain with its fewer guns is the safer place to live?

**

a society were no one would be so desperate for money or recognition. When we have this society, there would be no real need for a gun other than sport shooting. Then again in this society there would be no killing weather there were guns or not.

So by that logic if we try to bring about such a society we may as well get rid of guns at the same time, it might ever be a good first step in that direction.

**

The best defence against being shot, is to avoid being in situations where gunfire may be present. However it is not always your choice.

So by that logic if there were few or no guns it is less likely that such situations would arise.

**

You seem to be arguing that you need a gun against the supposed ‘rising tide of crime’ (you’re told about by the media) without seeming to ask why there is such crime

 

Balbus, don't misquote me.

I said: ...as long as the only practical defense against firepower is firepower...

My hope is that it will not always be the case and i work for a day when firearms are not needed.

But that day isn't today.

 

No, there comes a point of ensured mutual destruction which brings peace.

Once you reach a point of Mutually Assured Destruction it doesn't matter who has more weapons. It becomes who has more money to screw with things econmically.

You answered your own question. There are always people who will try to take the easy way out. They don't want to maintain a job or status.

No you will go to the easiest victom with the least amount of personal risk to get what you want.

because we live in the real world.

You can in the US as well. There is crime in the UK. The problem is it only takes the one time you are unprepared and it happens to end your life or the life of those you care about.

Yea, like we got rid of drugs when we decided those were bad right.

No need to always ask why, some things just are. No matter how much Government or police control crime will not end. No society has managed that one.

You can acheive nothing as a society when the strong do not protect the weak.

Guns are like money both equal power and there will always be the power hungry amoung us. If you outlaw guns do you think they will all just disappear?

I agree.

 

The founding fathers of the USA gave the citizens the right to bear arms and form militias. There was a good reason for that and it's annoying when both peaceniks living in a fantasy world and the government do all they can to undermine and chip away at that constitutional freedom.

The men who wrote the Bill of Rights thought an armed civilian populace was SO important that it was made into the second amendment, not the third, fourth, fifth, and so on. The right to bear arms came only second to the right to speak up against whoever is oppressing you.

Something tells me that all you anti-gun people would be singing a different tune if the only thing standing between martial law by a tyrannical government and your freedom to bitch about guns is a bunch of gun-owning civilians.

The fact that so many average americans own weapons(even military calibur weapons) is a reason why I believe that the government would never actually declare martial law. It would start a civil war and the government would lose. However, one doesn't let their guard down about such matters. We must all stay leery and aloof of our governments.

 

Wow, who would have thought that Balbus would be in the minority on this issue on this kind of site....

 

Balbus, do you really need for us to show you the crime stats for Australia, Canada, and the U.K. since their heavy handed gun bans?


Australia especially?

You know better than this...

 

There's always been something alarming I've found about a government that wants to take firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens and the people that support it.

 

What is that 5-1?


You're drowning Balbus! Quick, grab a biased source!

 

First up

Shane you seem to think that I’d be upset that my views are not popular with some people here, nothing could be further from the truth, I think it great. I’ve said I like open and honest debate and this seems to be an example of it, and it’s wonderful that people are sharing their different opinions, it would be a boring world if we all thought the same thing.

Second

Always remember that just because something seems to be the majority viewpoint does not make it instantly the best viewpoint.

Third

The is some stuff that is just a continuation of our discussion in the left have the better argument thread, I can put it there if you wish? Things like -

It's not about " to hell with everyone else".
It's about individual autonomy with free association and the ability to defend one's person.

Which by your very words translates into -

“I owe you nothing, i owe government nothing, i owe my neighbor nothing.
I am not responsible for the people in darfur, kosovo, france, china, n. korea, india, new orleans, new york city, boston, chicago, or anywhere else.
They are responsible for their own survival, health, food, happiness, ect.”

But I’ve said that before and you haven’t replied to it in the thread it was raised.

 

OK a few Q&A

Once you reach a point of Mutually Assured Destruction it doesn't matter who has more weapons. It becomes who has more money to screw with things econmically.

Yes not everyone will be able to get to the next point and will be at a disadvantage and even with those that do reach the same point economic power takes over. So as I said, its social Darwinist principle based on wealth. .

**

There are always people who will try to take the easy way out. They don't want to maintain a job or status.

Why?

**

No you will go to the easiest victom with the least amount of personal risk to get what you want.

But what if you don’t know? In a society with lots of guns isn’t then better to assume and so shoot first?

**

Quote:
Why are there ‘bad parts of town’ why isn’t all your town a good place to live without fear?

because we live in the real world.

But as I’ve said some places seem worse than others, why?

**

Quote:
So by that logic if we try to bring about such a society we may as well get rid of guns at the same time, it might ever be a good first step in that direction.

Yea, like we got rid of drugs when we decided those were bad right.

But in what way did the US try and get rid of drugs? That’s the question do you think the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘just say no’ campaign was going to work?

**

Quote:
You seem to be arguing that you need a gun against the supposed ‘rising tide of crime’ (you’re told about by the media) without seeming to ask why there is such crime

No need to always ask why, some things just are. No matter how much Government or police control crime will not end. No society has managed that one.

It seems to me that if you stop asking why you stop thinking rationally and you stop trying to change things for the better.

**

Quote:
Rather than giving everyone a gun I would rather work toward having a society were no one would be so desperate for money or recognition that they felt they needed to use a gun.

Guns are like money both equal power and there will always be the power hungry amoung us. If you outlaw guns do you think they will all just disappear?

So you want to be one of the ‘powerful’ you want the ‘power’, but of course you just want the ‘power’ to help. The problem is what ‘power’ do you have if you have a gun to counter the ‘power hungry’?

**

Quote:
I do agree that anarchy is not the answer, one can be charitable to fellow human beings and still own a gun. If someone needs an operation I would gladly do what I could to help out. However if someone just wants my TV because its bigger than his, well thats just tough shit for him, Im not just going to give it to him or just let him take it.

The best defense against being shot, is to avoid being in situations where gunfire may be present. However it is not always your choice.


I agree.

But “So by that logic if there were few or no guns it is less likely that such situations would arise”

**

In theory what you are saying is correct however in practicality very few people are in an arms race with thier neighbor.

But then why have a gun at all? I mean if you are not afraid of you ‘neighbour’ whats the point?

**

You are right VCRs etc are CHEAP, so why are so many of them stolen during burgularies? GREED its not about what they NEED but what they WANT otherwise they would be stealing your Ham Sandwich not your DVD player. I do agree that this behavior is NEVER acceptable weather you get away woith it or not. But you cannot hide from the fact that it happens every day.

But why? You say greed but why are they greedy?

**

Now that is just silly, this might be the case in some large corporate heist, however the other 99% of the criminals do not act this way, they look for and act against the EASIEST/SAFEST target. Just ask any of them which house they would have chosen.

But what if you don’t know? In a society with lots of guns isn’t then better to assume and so shoot first?

 

“Well that is very strange from the stats I have read violent crime in the UK has risen dramatically since the famous "gun Ban"

“dramatically”?

OK lets put gun related homicides for the UK and US in context

UK – 73 (2001, BBC)

USA - 11,348 (2001, University of Utah)

The UK has 60 million people compared with the USA’s of 250 –280 million so lets boost the UK’s figure

60 million – 70 deaths
120 million – 140 deaths
180 million – 210 deaths
240 million – 280 deaths
300 million – 350 deaths

In fact I believe to get to the USA’s levels of gun related homicides we would need to increase the UK’s population some 160 times to 9,600 million people, the worlds population at this time is only 6,500 million

 

My thesis is that the problem with many American attitudes towards guns is that they seem to see them as a way of dealing with and also ignoring many of the social problems within their society. It also seems to me to led to a belief that threat and suppression is the best means of defence.

For example someone said that a gun protected them from such people as crackheads and gangbangers but the problem as I see it is this can lead to the mentality that there is therefore no need to deal with the societal problems that has lead to drug addiction and exclusion.

Just as (I’ve pointed out in another thread) Israel believes it can defend itself against its Muslim neighbours makes them seem to believe that they don’t have to deal with what is causing the hostility to them.

Many people have stopped asking themselves why things are the way they are and have fallen into the trap of believing that this is how things are. As long as you keep out of the bad parts of town and carry a gun ‘that stuff’ doesn’t need to be dealt with.

And the best way of keeping it under control and in its place is by the threat that comes from owning a gun.

And it seems to me that if people believe that the threat of violence works it is not much of a step for many to start thinking that the actual use of violence is acceptable.

**

The false sense of power that guns can give people also seems to appears in the idea that they are a protection against government persecution.

As several people here have implied here at one time or another the holocaust may never have happened if the Jews had been armed.

The problem is that the German people had been taught the Jews were dangerous. So what if some of them had fired on the police that had come to take them away, do you think the German people would have seen this a justified and come to their defence or just seem it as proof the Jews were indeed dangerous and needed locking away?

Think about US history, did the Native American that fought back, get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese decent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them, and what if they had shot at the police would they have got general popular support? What about these hauled in front of McCarthy, would people rallied to them if they had refused to go before such a witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?

 

1.) I'm familiar with Argumentum ad Populum. I was just messing with you Balbus...

2.) i don't mind continuing that conversation as long as the points i've raised with the issue of gun ownership are still discussed in this thread.

 

Pitt

“Greed is a n atural human emotion, its those that cannot control thier greed that turns to criminal activity to try and satisfy thier greed.”

I don’t see greed being a ‘natural emotion’, can you explain your thinking? I mean many people show signs of the opposite - generosity – giving their time, energy and money freely, are you saying they’re some type of freaks against nature?

**


“Do not misunderstand my POV. I do advocate addressing social issues that tend to cultivate violent/criminal activity”

I’d like to believe you but you seem to be expressing the same viewpoint as I’ve mentioned. You place at the top of the list of reasons for owning a gun not the entertainment value but

“protection from violent people (ie criminals, carjackers, gang bangers)”

You then go on to seemly wish to take out of the US homicide figures “criminal vs criminal” deaths.

You seem to be implying that in your opinion these deaths should be dismissed.

Isn’t that the very mentality I talked about that dismisses such crimes and is therefore wishing to ignore the underlying social problems that caused them?

**

“70 gun related homicides in the UK? what kind of homicides do these include, because I can tell you for a fact that the figure you quote from the US includes criminal vs criminal, accidental, police shootings etc etc. Ill bet your UK figure does not include these same stats.”

Actually the total number of gun related deaths in the US in 2001 was 29,573

Suicide 16,869
Homicide 11,348
Accident 802
Legal Intervention 323
Undetermined 231

The total number of gun related deaths in the UK in 2001 was 167 of which 73 were crime related and the others suicides and accidents. There were no police fatalities in that year.

Think about it, the US’s ‘Undetermined’ gun deaths far exceed the UK’s total figures.

So sorry the reflection still stands

UK – 73 (2001)

USA - 11,348 (2001)

The UK has 60 million people compared with the USA’s of 250 –280 million so lets boost the UK’s figure

60 million – 70 deaths
120 million – 140 deaths
180 million – 210 deaths
240 million – 280 deaths
300 million – 350 deaths

In fact I believe to get to the USA’s levels of gun related homicides we would need to increase the UK’s population some 160 times to 9,600 million people, the worlds population at this time is only 6,500 million

Once more think about it, to get the UK’s levels of gun related homicides up to the US’s you would have to increase the British citizenry not only to the present WORLDS population but would need to add 3 BILLION more on top.

Levelling up the population of the UK to 300 million would give total gun deaths at 835 while the US with some 280 million people has 29,573.

**

 

Pitt

You seem to be mixing up desire and greed, I’ll try and explain –

You and some friends are having coffee together and on the table in front of you is a bowel of biscuits. You see a friend eat one of the biscuits and you think ‘I want one’, the bowel is full and the host has said you may help your self, so you take one. After finishing it you want another, but only a few are left in the bowel so you ask your friends if they mind if you take another and they say fine.
That’s desire and fulfilment.
Now being greedy would be to take all the biscuits put them in your bag and not let anyone else have any.

Are greed and generosity ‘natural emotions’, I don’t think so. People soon learn that if you ‘take all the biscuits’ soon you don’t get invited around for coffee anymore.

In most communities generosity is admired and greed despised. The problem is that in some capitalist societies greed is praised, hidden beneath what is called ‘ambition’ and ‘success’. People within these societies often believe that is doesn’t matter if you hurt people (or are disliked) to ‘get ahead’ that success is all that matters. And so many see crime as just a means to an end and acceptable as long as it brings the status and success that the society teaches then is all that matters. So you steal the biscuits from one house to present them in your own house to show your friends just how successful you are that you can hand out such wonderful biscuits.

Also something like starvation can overrule taught responses, in which case you wouldn’t care what your friends thought you wouldn’t care about anything but stuffing your mouth full of biscuits (and why have your ‘friends’ not noticed you were in such a bad way and helped?)

Think about this, a lot of petty crime is caused by addiction, people rob to feed their habit and people say ‘feed’ because having a habit is a lot like eating. If an addict has had a fix they are feed, if they need a fix they are hungry and if they really need a fix they’re staving. And that feeling of starvation overrides all other concerns.

**

You made a list and the first thing you put in it (consciously or not) was “protection from violent people (ie criminals, carjackers, gang bangers)”

Then you went on to seemly wish to take out of the US homicide figures “criminal vs criminal” deaths.

Which implying that in your opinion these deaths should be dismissed.

So I ask again isn’t that the very mentality I talked about that dismisses such crimes and is therefore wishing to ignore the underlying social problems that caused them?

**

I see you don’t seem to be getting the point about the US homicide figures.

OK lets try it another way

250 m (US population) = 10,000 gun related homicides

So if we halved the population there would be half the deaths

125m = 5000

62.5m = 2500 (so if the UK was like the US we would have over two thousand deaths)

31.2 = 1250

15.6= 625

7.8 = 313

3.9 = 157

1.9 = 78

So the population of the USA would have to drop to below 2 million people to get it to only have 70ish gun related deaths.

Now Slovenia has a population of 1.9 million

In 1994 the US had 14.24 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, Slovenia had 2.6 and that’s pretty bad when you compare it to those in England and Wales that year which was 0.41

So either Americans are a very murderous lot or …well can you think of any other explanations?

**

The gun crime rate has increasing at 6% on last year but to get to the 2500 or so homicides that the UK would have to have to compare with the America rate of deaths would mean that their would have to be an increase of 3500% on the UK figure of 70 deaths.

To get that to happen would need a war to break out in the UK, even then it would have to be a pretty bloody one (remember only 250 British soldiers died in the Falklands war and it took a couple of years for the death toll of US soldiers to top 2000 in Iraq)

**

Now if it is still unclear to you what I’m getting at I’ll put it even more simply

So bad is the US situation compared to that in the UK that for Americans to warn the British about their gun crime rates is like a crackhead warning someone who drinks coffee that they have a dangerous habit.

I mean if you are honestly trying to tell me that the UK would be a better place if we followed the US model you really need a better showcase.

**

PS: Sorry the UK has not banned knives, here is a kids site that might help you.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/uk/newsid_3937000/3937253.stm

 

Ok my thesis is that many Americans see gun ownership as a way of dealing with (and therefore ignoring and dismissed) social problems that may be better dealt with if they were faced.

It is the kind of mentality that only tackles the symptoms and not the causes, think about these facts

The US has high incarceration rates and brutal prisons. (726 people per 100,000 compared with the UK’s 142 and France’s 91).

It has large numbers of ‘gated’ communities and American’s advise for not getting into trouble is to stay away from ‘bad’ areas and keeping a gun handy just in case

These are reactions to crime not enquiry into why that crime exists.

What we’ve had so far is the rather lame theory that ‘bad’ people commit crime, people who are ‘naturally’ greedy and work shy.

As a serious explanation it seems woefully inadequate, I mean why are they bad were they born bad and if not why did they turn bad?

 

I think if the US had been serious about really establishing a new "REGIME" in Iraq it would have gone a whole lot smoother and quicker if the citizens had been relieved of their weapons, and the munitions dumps had been secured. Just seems like it would have been a sound military option.